


Earthbound Misfit

by Radioheading



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Vessels, Dean-Centric, Hurt Dean, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Profound Bond, Romance, Soul Bond, Vessels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6247030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radioheading/pseuds/Radioheading
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean, sick of Castiel treating him like a pawn and his brother an insect, asks the angel if he feels anything. If he's capable. When he gets his answer, the repercussions may be more than he can handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean can't remember, after, what triggered the question. Maybe it was the way Castiel looked at Sam, the flit of dismissive eyes that crushed his little brother, though he didn't show it. It had Dean gritting his teeth, gnashing them together to stop words and his insides out, both laced with malignant heat. He's not sure if it's an after-effect of hell, some stupid latent reaction from coming back to from the dead more alone than he's ever been. No one knows how he feels. And how can they? They didn't do what he did, didn't see what he saw. The ones that have want him dead or laugh icily, having heard of the legendary hunter that was two steps away from becoming just like them.

So, for the most part, he keeps his mouth shut around Castiel. Not out of respect or blind admiration (the kind Sam still harbors silently), but for fear of being sent back, like the angel promised, if he didn't do exactly like Heaven asked. Heaven. He scoffs at its name, the connotations of gentle light and harmonious singing. It's all bullshit to him now because he knows the truth, or as much of it as he can glean from the angels he's met. And the truth is a bureaucracy, levels of angels doling out orders to the caste under them, scrambling around in the dark without His presence, the absent Daddy they're lost without. He takes satisfaction in the idea that God is MIA--it proves his theory that there's nothing out there watching innocent people's backs, that they're really all alone. He thinks, though, that an apathetic God might possibly be far worse than none at all.

But like he says, he doesn't remember exactly what Castiel says or does that finally breaks the tenuous hold on his temper, that makes him lose his sight behind the thick red of anger that spills over the irises, obscuring everything but what he feels. Maybe it was a remark about the demon blood in Sam, the thinly veiled threat of his assassination that trips him over the edge, so quickly that he doesn't have time to scrabble for grip and just falls, blind and deaf and dumb in the face of the wind as it howls around him. Castiel has no social skills, he knows. But he _does not_ threaten Dean's family as a gambit to get his help. Of all the ways to manipulate him, the angel has chosen the exact wrong path to trip down. _No one_ uses Sam like a pawn. Neither side. The threat is the last thing he hears before waves crash in his ears, obliterating everything else but the sound of circular, rolling motion, and then he's coming back to himself, shouting the last few words of a rant.

"Sam is my blood," he says. "And you, you're nothing. You have no blood, no kin. You call the angels your brothers and sisters, but what does that even mean to you?" He's aware of the pulsing electricity in Castiel's eyes, which have turned a rather dark color, that of an incoming storm over a forever horizon. But hey, he's already dug the ditch, so why not lay in it? "Do you _feel_ anything at all, Castiel? Maybe that's why papa bear left--he couldn't stand to be surrounded by the robots he'd created."

The words pass his lips, become real in the air they're carried on, and at the same instant, Castiel disappears.

"That," Sam says from the corner, eyes so wide they're mostly whites, "Was really dumb."

"You're welcome, asshole," he grunts back, though he's inclined to agree.

"Any reason you decided to go head-to-head with an angel?"

"I'm suicidal?" Dean pastes a smile on, then remembers he should be smirking. He corrects the misstep. "They don't fuck with my family, Sammy," he says, looking at anything but the overgrown extension of his own genetics. His brother doesn't say anything, doesn't even tell Dean not to call him Sammy. Things are quiet after that, Sam on his computer, the steady clack of keys taking the place of conversation but feeling comforting nonetheless. Eventually Dean decides a shower is in order; he announces such to Sam and heads to the bathroom, turning the water on as hot as it goes, thinking that maybe this time, just maybe, he'll be able to scour himself entirely clean. With clothes still on, he stares into his own reflection until the steam obscures it, though the nothing it covers his features with are pretty much identical to what he sees in himself now. It's so obvious, the lack in him, the great gaping place where his goodness used to be that he wonders sometimes how he can fool people, how he isn't approached by strangers on the street wondering how he can still be alive with all of his insides gone. He's always been good at pretending to be alright. He just never knew how good until after he was pulled from the pit.

When he steps under the wash of too-hard water that apparently does nothing for Sam's hair, it makes him hiss a little but in a good way, a clean way, a catharsis that's never fully complete, even though he chases after it every second he can. _God_ , he thinks, _poor Dean, poor little Winchester. Just shut up and keep going, don't think, don't remember, just go._  The motel soap dries his skin, leaves residue under his nails that he flicks away, little half-moons that stick to the shower curtain, resting a moment before sliding down, evaporating into nothing. He returns to a dark room, falls asleep quickly and screams himself awake a few hours later, sitting up, hands out, ready for a fight. Sam rolls over in his bed, snuffles something about how stare indecisis isn't actually relevant to the banana on the tractor before going silent, smiling in his sleep.

Dean scrubs at his eyes the next day. They sting with fatigue under his fingers, and the sun's heated gaze isn't doing him any favors, either. They stop at their latest motel, some 1950s style monstrosity in Fuckall, Georgia, and Sam tells him he's heading for an internet cafe he spotted in town because, of course, this place is taking its authenticity seriously, and wifi didn't exist in the good ole' days, dammit. Or it's just a really fucking cheap place. But Dean doesn't argue when Sam goes, just hands him the keys. If his brother's eyes stay on his slumped form stretched out on the bed, limbs akimbo, he doesn't say anything about it.

He's starting to drift off when he hears a rustling and thinks Sam's come back. "Hey," he slurs under an arm, trying to block out the light of day, "Thought you went out, Sammy." The voice that answers him sends chills down his spine, though it's not angry. It's not _anything_. Maybe that's why it's so frightening.

"I'm not Sam, Dean."

He sits up slowly, refuses to give the angel the satisfaction of seeing him scared, startled.

"Castiel," he greets formally, trying to get his voice to hum in that same stiff way the angel manages so well. He starts to ask what the angel's doing there, what he wants now, but the light pressure of fingers on his head, cool to the touch, cuts him off and the unnerving feeling of blinking out of existence surges through him. It's worse becoming solid again, though, he thinks, because as soon as they arrive to wherever he's been taken, he falls to his knees, head swimming and pressured like an invisible force has wrapped around it and squeezed tight. His stomach churns, too, and for a moment he thinks he's going to be sick. The thought comes with some satisfaction, though, because Castiel's shoes are just within range for him to accidentally splash them with his bile. But the dizzy sensation clears and he pulls himself up, refusing to look weak. Some part of him wonders how futile that is, though, because this is the angel that found him in hell, that held his soul at one point. And aren't humans just blips of momentary weakness to angels, anyway?

"Why are we here?" He asks. "Where is here?" Here looks like a flat field next to a lonely two-lane highway, a little stretch of nowhere, a place en route to a destination without ever being one itself.

"You asked me a question," the angel says, hands limp by his sides. Dean notices this, the lack of human gestures and tics, the aura of awkwardness that surrounds Castiel's human form. He wishes the angel would stick his hands in his pockets, blink more, chew on his lips or something, wishes he would just _pretend_ to be a little closer to human. Because like this, with the other man so obviously not of this world, Dean is constantly reminded of a rescuer, constantly reminded of what he was rescued from.

"What? Cas, what's this about?" He shortens the name automatically, frustration breeding familiarity.

"You asked me what I felt, Dean. _If_ I felt." He takes a step, then two, and suddenly he's too close, another one of those human cultural things he doesn't understand, doesn't take the time to.

"Yeah?" He holds himself still, refuses to back away, even though the proximity to the man's face Castiel wears is too close for comfort, especially when the eyes make contact and stare IN, too deeply, like a scientist looking through a microscope.

"Will you let me show you?" God, the angel's eyes are blue. And they're too much, too intense, so Dean blurts out a yes before he can think of any repercussions, and then the blue is gone, hidden by eyelashes and closed lids. Castiel's vessel starts to sway before toppling completely, falling to the ground heavily. Dean would have tried to catch it, to keep it from colliding with the unforgiving earth, but he can't move, is suddenly in the backseat of his own body, his mind.

 _What are you doing?!_ He screams, mind bucking under Castiel's influence, trying to reclaim his body, his  _self_ from this strange violation.

“Calm down, Dean,” he hears his voice reply, and this time, it's pitch-perfect in that monotone he knows so well. “Just give me a chance.”

Dean bites back fury, the wall of hate and anguish that boils up in him. The angel has taken his control, the only thing he has left over himself after hell. He says what happens to his body, who he touches, how he uses it. But _this_ , this is wrong and foreign and if he could use his tear ducts they'd be overflowing. As it is he's trembling inside, creating a minor earthquake, trying to displace his captor.

 _No, Dean. It's not like that. Just let me show you._ Castiel isn't using his voice anymore, reaches out with something else, something bigger and stronger that's like a balm to the hole inside, gentle hands on an aching back. Dean can't help it then, opens reflexively, a plant looking for light. And just like that, Castiel washes over him. It's the only way he can describe the indescribable. The world opens up in front of him, air and land and sky and he's connected to it all somehow, its plain beauty sending his senses into overdrive, the details too much to see in one view. But he doesn't want to blink doesn't want to miss a second of the _life_ that's all around him. The grace inside him reaches out, spreading thin to touch a bit of everything, the heat of the sun, the silk of the grass beneath and the heart that beats inside of him, a constant reminder of his second chance.

His chin is guided down so he can see Cas' vessel, the unconscious body of a man that the angel doesn't quite know how to work. Dean feels how strange it is for Cas to be stuck inside a body, to be limited to human mobility and speech, to the separation and isolation humanity subscribes to. The body is a trap to the angel, a cage that pins back his wings and mind, the connection he has with the Host and other angels.

 _You see?_ He's asked. And then he's inside himself, looking at what has to be his soul, a pinpoint star surrounded by a nebulous cloud of power. It's beautiful, but he only has a moment to admire it before he's pulled in further, until he's nothing _but_ his soul and is being cradled by Castiel's grace.

 _This is how my family shows affection,_ he tells Dean, who imagines a smile on the angel's—or, his host's—face as he whispers it, the words skittering through Dean, almost tickling. It's so much to take, all light and energy and _good_ , sensations he thought had abandoned him entirely.

_Does it feel like this all the time in heaven?_

_Not lately,_ Castiel replies, grace fluttering with sadness that leaves Dean gasping, heart splitting with emotion his body can't handle. Castiel fills him too much, overflows his senses, his everything.

_So you see?_

And Dean does. He sees that Castiel feels more than he ever could, on levels far beyond his comprehension. His own range feels like a thimble in relation to the angel's ocean, a superficial joke.

 _I'm sorry_ , he manages, voice thick. Because now he knows, now he understands that this apocalypse, this train wreck of a future they're heading for is breaking the angel up as much as it is Dean's own family. Without thinking, he does what comes instinctively for him: touch. Though it isn't, not really, but he expands, somehow, the ball of his soul unfolding a bit until it strokes the surrounding grace, flushing up against it until they intertwine, become suspended together as one. It's the closest Dean's ever come to bliss without sex, a bitter realization because he knows he won't ever feel it again.

Humans don't feel like this.

And then it's over. He's back in his hotel room, though Castiel is too. His body is his again, but it's still echoing with the shared experience and it feels like he's reaching for something unconsciously, a yearning that's deep and _sure_ of what it wants. He's looking at the vessel again, the stony blue and his eyes tear because he feels so _lonely_ after having felt what he did just moments ago.

“Goodbye, Dean,” Castiel says, cocking his head a little, examining him from another angle. “I'll be back soon.”

Dean knows he's in trouble by the way his stomach drops when Castiel disappears.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean knows that the sky above him is vast in ways he cannot know, so like most he calls it infinity and forgets about it. But not tonight. Tonight, while his brother screams and writhes and babbles words that make the lights of his cell flicker and spark, Dean Winchester looks up at the sky and wonders just how big it really is. He wants to know how much is out there, how alone he really is. People look at the stars and see familiar shapes, clusters that reflect deities or astrological signs. But they're just made-up patterns, used to make the unknowable that much more familiar. He wonders whose idea it was, stars, because they're a nice touch, little beacons of light that welcome, somehow.

He doesn't know what to do with himself. He can't help Sam, can't reach into his blood and pull out the taint, the guilty itch that's been scratched, over and over. He can't stay near, offering comforting words because Sam's anguish is suffocating, sets his teeth on edge and makes something inside clench so hard he's afraid he'll give himself a heart attack. So he does nothing, is useless, standing alone in the dark.

“Do you know how long people have been doing that?” He hears from behind, a familiar sandpaper voice that's been in his dreams lately more often than not. It strikes him as odd, how different Cas' voice is from Jimmy's, the man he'd come to know just a few days ago. It's like the angel's power bleeds out of the human around the edges, just enough to make it seem like energy crackles around him, to give an aura of something _other,_ something fierce. When he turns, takes in the ever-present trench coat and sloppy tie, the image is overlaid with blood, sliding between Jimmy's teeth, past his lips and chin, out of a hole in his chest, coming together like a vibrant bloom against the white of his shirt.

“Looking at the stars,” Cas—Dean doesn't know why it feels right to use the nickname, but after the moment, the _thing_ they shared, he'd fallen into the habit, thought it automatically—moves closer, the sound of his steps masked entirely. It makes the hairs on Dean's arms jump up, this unconscious display of power.

“Well, if the intelligent design has anything to say about it, six thousand years or so?”

“Some humans have strange theories,” Cas says. “Imagine, the Earth only six thousand years old.” The angel raises his head, though, stares into the blue-black canopy above. “You've always been drawn to the stars, though. Even the first humans.”

“Maybe it's because it's easy to imagine that something's looking back,” he whispers. He's glad for the dark, glad that he can pivot, rest on the bumper of the Impala and be silent long enough to try and collect himself.

 “I didn't understand, at first.” Cas is in front of him now and fuck, he doesn't want to be seen like this, turned his back for a reason, but hands, long-fingered and delicate for a man, the pallor of the skin almost giving them a glow, reach for him confidently, an unwavering gesture that's completed with small swipes of the fingers, brushing salty warmth off Dean's face.

“Humans,” he continues, hands dropping back to his sides. “It's like you were set up to fail from the start, given only language to use with one another.” Cas sits next to him, their shoulders almost brushing. “You can't ever fully know anyone else when you only have words. Words don't mean anything because they come so easily, so you only have yourself. But when James' daughter was my vessel, when he could have gone to Heaven and left all this behind,” he gestures out at a world Dean knows is chaotic, rotting under human influence, “and he chose to take me in again, I—I think I got a piece of why you're so special, so different.” The angel almost sounds hesitant, a tone Dean's never heard in him before.

“I could sense it in James, a savage, wholly complete love.” Now he's looking at Dean, eyes questioning, asking if he's on the right track. “It's that, even though you shouldn't ever completely trust anyone, love anyone else, you do. You _try._ In spite of not knowing if it's the right thing. And it's _instinct_ to you.”

It doesn't sound like the angel's talking about the entirety of the human population anymore. He's looking at Dean, eyes moving back and forth, skipping from eye to eye like he's searching for something, like Dean's hiding something he needs to know. Dean feels open, like he's laid out naked in a surgery theater and there's only one onlooker, but they're pinning him down with the strength of a gaze.

“Humanity 101, Cas.” Dean matches pitch now, the words rough, low. He tells himself it's from the stress of hearing, _feeling_ his brother in pain, and nothing else.

“It appears I do have much to learn about you.” It's ambiguous, the statement, and Dean doesn't know how to deal with it, especially if it's directed at him because it's not the type of thing angels say to people. They don't care to learn, to know and understand those given tasks by heaven. No, from what Dean's seen, they just want the job to get done and the charge to shut the fuck up. He opens his mouth to say something derisive, to dismiss Cas' serious gaze, but the space next to him is empty, and the smell of morning air as the sun rises—a scent he's attributed to the angel—is the only hint that anyone was ever there at all.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “First lesson: proper goodbyes.” The joke is wasted, mostly because he tells it to himself. His heart beats a little faster, pounding a little harder at his temples, at the tips of his fingers. He touches the pulsing digits to his face, absorbing the warmth Cas left behind.

Later, after he's shoved earplugs so far into his canals that he's pretty sure he'll need tweezers to get them out the next morning, he falls asleep imagining the screams he's managed to block out. They transition with him, come alive as he slips into unconsciousness' cradle and his mind is free to bring out the blackest parts of his soul. The screams remain Sam's, because he's hung up on a rack in front o Dean, hooks coming out of dislocated shoulders, lazy trickles of blood squirming down his chest every time he struggles. And he struggles, especially as Dean walks toward him. He feels the knife in his hand, the dynamic thrill of its weight and the creative ways it will be put to use. He feels a smile pull his lips back to show slightly sharper teeth, a deranged smirk that makes Sam's shout at him, try to find reason where none exists.

“Dean,” he rasps, groaning with the pain, fresh tracks of tears making their way down his cheeks, eyes glassy green, “Don't do this Dean, please—I'm your brother, man, I'm your broth—”

He's cut off by the silver slide of Dean's knife into his side. Dean watches himself as if just over his own shoulder, swallows bile when the rack gets lowered, when he hitches up and licks up Sam's cheek, leaning to whisper into his younger brother's ear.

“There is no family down here, Sammy,” he hisses, wrenching the blade up and out before bringing his fingers, sticky-red, to his lips, painting them garish, tongue flicking out to taste the blood.

“Mm,” he sighs. “Welcome home, Sam.”

When he's pulled out of the dream, he's trashing, a layer of sweat on his skin.

“You must hurry, Dean,” Cas is saying, helping him up, pushing him to the stairs. “Sam has escaped.”

Around that time, the world ends. Not the _world_ world. That, Dean's assured, will come later. When Sam says yes. And, apparently, everyone thinks he will. Dean doesn't think about it, not at all, because he would eventually come to a conclusion, one that he won't let happen. If he thinks it will happen, even if he never admits it, never says it out loud, it's still giving in. But the world he knows, the one where he's part of a united front, where he can trust that his brother will always have his back, is over, gone, washed away with a swirl of demon blood.

Sam chose Ruby. Sam chose a demon over his own blood. He can hear his father's voice in his head; _protect Sam, take care of him, watch out for him_. He did, as best he could. But Sam couldn't reciprocate, couldn't face the idea that he could be wrong, that what he was doing was wrong. And now the devil's on his back, breathing down his neck, asking for a single syllable. And Dean, too—he's the makings to be such a good puppet, Michael's perfect fit. The thought wrings his stomach, sending the acid into the sides, eating away at itself because there's nothing else in there to break down. He can't eat, can't bring himself to shove down food that tastes like nothing and feels worse, greasy and slippery inside him.

And he hasn't felt Cas since the night he'd been woken by the angel, and arrived too late to stop Sam from playing right into Ruby's hands. It started right after the field, the strange ability to sense Cas. He thinks of horses, how they know a storm is coming, eyes rolling back into their heads, tails swinging wildly. It's like that, but inside, a rush of adrenaline that makes his hair stand up, that alerts every synapse, sending rapidfire impulses to his spine until he feels like he's vibrating, a reverberation of the angel's power. But he knows he's being watched, because he isn't having nightmares, isn't dreaming at all, falling instead into light comas that leave him strangely achy, like he's missing something important. So he doesn't sleep much, tries to stay up all hours doing what Sam used to do—research. There's so much out there, countless deep dark nasties, and they're just waiting for him to come after them, the legendary Dean Winchester. And he doesn't disappoint. He's a machine, dedicated to what he's good at, _killing things, saving people_ , just like old days but better because he can't betray himself. He doesn't stop for air, barely cleans his knives before sinking them into new targets.

He slips when trying to take down a nest of vampires. He stands up too fast after one's bitten a chunk out of his arm, though he finds some pleasure in the fact that it lost its head shortly thereafter. But the last one, a girl no older than 13, barrels at him and he doesn't have time to regroup because his vision is swimming, fingers going numb and he isn't sure he even grips the knife anymore. He's sort of surprised that it's going to end this way, that Michael himself isn't going to show up at save him. But then he remembers the sigil on his ribs and laughs. The dick angel isn't going to be happy about this.

When his demise doesn't come, and the faint sound of gurgling starts nearby, he opens his eyes to see the vampire's head near his hand, her body pouring blood onto the floor. His angel— _his angel?—_ is standing over him, bloody knife in hand.

“Get up,” he says. “Don't let the blood contaminate your wounds.” If moaning weakly counts as a reply, then his is a strong one. Cas just shakes his head, lowers fingers and then they're back in his motel.

“You need a cleaning,” Cas frowns, or Dean thinks he does. The room's spinning in quick circles, so he can't be entirely sure.

But Cas does nothing, makes no move to guide him to the bathroom, so he breathes deeply, ignoring the sting of bruised ribs.

“Shower?” he questions, trying to focus on Cas' impenetrable facade. It comes out low and thin, the residue of a voice. The residue of a man. If he could laugh at himself, at how fucking pathetic he's become, he would. He can see himself, even from a few months ago, looking down at his shriveled body with disdain, disgust. He's been falling into himself, wanting to disappear. And he has. He's on the verge of sleep, or just losing consciousness, when he notices that the angel is glowing, faintly.

 _That's new._ He can't stop looking at it, the luster of light under skin. It's beautiful and strange and he just wants to touch, but the weakness of his limbs prevents it. The angel's—Jimmy's—body gathers Dean in his arms and the light intensifies but doesn't burn, just reaches for him, embraces him. His eyes fall shut, though, when Cas' hand covers them. When the makeshift blindfold is removed, he's looking up at the sky, and it's daytime.

“We're not on earth,” Cas says, preemptively shutting him up. He's also ahead of the game for next one. “It's just a quiet place I like to go.”

 _Why do I feel so_ — Dean's head is swimming, wherever they are. He feels hot and cold, feverish and impossibly light. He doesn't notice that his words aren't spoken.

“Because your spirit is weak.” It's not an insult, not a judgment. Just the truth. Always just the truth. He tries to shift in Cas' grip, to get a better look at himself, but there's nothing, an insubstantial sort of mist that pulses and waves, a specter.

“You were stronger than this,” Cas cups his hand, draws it through where Dean's waist would be if he had one, sending shocks of buzzing warmth through whatever he is, “When I pulled you out of hell. You were more substantial than this coming fresh from torturing someone.”

 _No,_ _Cas, that can't be—you're—_ But then he decides to be honest with himself, listens to the sombre tone of the angel's voice.

_What do I do?_

“You let me help you.”

Dean can't bring himself to say anything. The acknowledgment that he needs help is too much. He never had to ask when Sam was around. Kid had _instinct,_ allowed him to keep his pride and silently got off on schooling his brother. He chokes on a sob that comes out garbled, but that's good enough for Cas, who draws him in like a breath, and Dean feels himself flowing, being pulled _into_ the angel, into his essence again. He would never admit it, but the grace that surrounds him feels like a jacuzzi, all warmth and comfort and the pressure of heat used to unwind, to channel the tension that's built in him. But it breaks something too, makes the wall he's built in himself implode, releasing his doubt and fear and agony over him in such a wave that he thinks he'll drown because he's got no one left, no one standing in his corner, no one who actually _knows_ him, who would care if he died.

 _Dean, that's—_ Cas starts, but he abandons his words, the ones he'd called pointless so long ago (or was it really only weeks?) and just _feels_ , sending comfort and companionship through Dean. It's so full, so deep that he knows it must be real, that somehow the angel's grown attached to him, wants him around. But maybe it's deeper than that, maybe it's a need, a personal want. Because he's getting something, a low trill that he can't quite name because labeling would make it real. So he just revels in what he's being given, in the way that Cas is safe and solid around him. God, thinking about the angel brings up his human front, the eyes that Dean's his phantom heart thud that much harder, even here. And he knows Cas can feel it, can see straight through him, reading every thought and emotion that crosses his mind.

Somehow, it's alright with him. Everything is, here. Even more so when the angel grips him tighter while allowing himself to expand, and it's like it was on the field that day. They're one being, one mix of human and angel that's oddly perfect in its flaws. Dean can sense the holes in his own soul, though, the gaps that seem especially wide in comparison to the surrounding grace.

 _Dean._ Cas stops his thoughts, pulls him away from his shortcomings. _Let me help you._

He draws a breath, air he doesn't need for lungs that aren't there. _Ok,_ he replies, and though it feels like something's been wrenched from him as the word leaves his mind, it doesn't matter. A moment later, the world gives way to a white he'd happily drown in.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Dean feels when he's back in the motel is hunger. He's curled onto a bed that countless have slept on before in some anonymous town, but now the floor doesn't feel like it's falling out from under him. He's still weak, still covered in bruises, cuts and the crusted remnants of his own blood, but the muscles of his back don't feel as taxed, as weighed down like normal when he's busy imitating Atlas.

“You need to eat, Dean.” Cas looks so odd next to the backdrop of kitschy wallpaper and shag carpet; not a hair out of place, clothes obscenely proper against the dusty lining of a building falling into dilapidation.

“I'm not sure I should drive, Cas.” _Thank you for staying. I don't know why you care, but thank you._ He knows he'll never say the words, but he thinks them, means them, and if the angel chooses to read his mind, hey. Shit happens.

“I could go,” he offers, and Dean imagines the angel trying to interact with servers in a diner or a local pizza joint and just waves the words away, holding in a laugh.

“I'll order in.” He can't be sure, but relief might have washed over Cas' features for a split second. A few minutes spent on the phone results in a large pizza, an order of garlic bread and a bottle of Coke. Thank you very much, sir. He doesn't know what to do with the awkward silence that falls over the room, the unsaid words that build up in his mouth, trying to be said, only for him to swallow them down. It's so hard for him to translate what he feels, how he feels, into words, into things that make sense to anyone else. And he's always been this way, more prone to walking away or hitting someone or letting angry tears slide hot down his hidden face than to actually explaining himself. Sam hated that about him, the moody silences he fell into, thought it was a form of punishment. But Dean's learned the hard way that what he puts out can be used against him, turned into a weapon locked on to his biggest weaknesses.

Silence is easier, anyway. Or it used to be. Now, each moment that passes is one wasted with sealed confessions, with pride and fear that stand in front of him, blocking his access to what he wants. _What do I want?_ It's not a question he asks himself, ever. If he stops to think, if he lets his mind slip into a place where he doesn't need to hunt or kill or bear the responsibility of being a pawn for 'the greater good,' the things he comes up with, the stable images of a home and friends and maybe even people he loves, taunt him. He'll never have normal. Not after all he's seen. Not after hell. So asking him to imagine anything but the hunt, the uncomfortable beds and itchy sheets and glaze-eyed driving is like torture because it's salt in a wound, makes him lust for what's just out of reach. Sam never got that, either. Then again, he'd had a chance at normal, at least for a little while—and it was _because_ , not in spite of Dean that he'd gotten as much as he did. He'd been the sacrificial lamb, the one to stay behind and support their father, though neither would ever admit its necessity.

So when he peers inside himself and feels a little echo, a hum of response to Cas' presence, it scares the shit out of him. He can't _want_ an angel, can't try to claim a part of something that only has loyalty to its absent father (and, yeah, Dean understands that one firsthand). And though angels are genderless creatures, really, it's pretty relevant that Cas currently inhabits the form of a man—one with smooth skin and long limbs, thick dark hair and fluid eyes—but a man, nonetheless. Dean isn't gay, has always craved the skin under his to be smooth and delicate, to have soft hair and gentle curves. He's admired other men, taken second glances, maybe, but appreciation isn't necessarily attraction. So the fact that he can't look at the angel now without wondering what he tastes like, whether he turns right or left when going in for a kiss and how his face would contort during the throes of an orgasm is slightly unnerving, at best.

A knock on the door interrupts his sexual identity crisis.

“Cas,” he motions to the angel at his pocket of the jacket he's still wearing. “Can you get my wallet? Give 'em twenty-five.” Cas nods, slides off the bed he's perched on and reaches in to the confines of the leather against Dean's t-shirt. The scrabble of fingers across his chest feels better than he wants to admit, but then it's gone. Cas pays the delivery boy and sets the food down, its scent already permeating the air. Dean's handed a slice, eats it too quickly and burns the roof of his mouth, though can't stop tonguing it, pressing again and again to feel the little responsive ache. He gets full too quickly but knows enough not to overeat. With one need fulfilled, though, he realizes how disgusting he feels and knows he must smell worse. What's troubling is that he's not sure he can hold himself up in the shower long enough for it to do any good.

He pushes himself up on arms that vibrate wildly, threatening to collapse at the slightest of sudden movements. It takes so much effort, so much sheer will that when an arm slides around his waist and another takes his hand, slinging it over a steady shoulder, he doesn't fight the help. Surprise outweighs pride, and he knows as soon as they're standing together that if Cas let go, he would be heading for the floor. His legs are jello, feet unsure of how, exactly, they're supposed to support his body. So he rests his weight on the angel who holds it calmly, like there's a child in his arms and not a muscular adult.

“Come on.” Cas leads him to the bathroom, sits him down on the toilet and doesn't ask permission before pulling at Dean's coat, sliding it off stiff shoulders, skimming over the skin of his arms as he goes. Dean thinks about being angry, but the touch is gentle, personal. His shirt comes next, and he watches as Cas' eyes are drawn to the tattoo on his chest, the protection symbol that's twinned by the one on Sam. His shoulder holds the first mark Cas put on him; his ribs the second. The angel pauses to examine both before looking back up at Dean and it's _sensual_ , the territorial look in a being that needs no worldly possessions or connections. Dean's body starts to react to the look, the _possession_ in it, and though he pictures his elementary teacher, a rather rotund woman with teeth only an orthodontist could love, naked on a cold day, blood floods down through his waist, pooling low. He's split, _want need touch_ vs. _angel damned wrong_ , a fight his conscience struggles valiantly in until he's pulled up and his pants just disappear, leaving him very suddenly naked and very close to the angel, whose light fingers are now followed by chills as they shift Dean closer to the shower stall to turn the water on.

They step in together, water spraying two naked men now, a blink-and-you-missed-it banishment of clothes that has Dean looking Cas'—Jimmy's—body up and down, taking in long muscles and sinewy limbs, the long lines of a swimmer. The light blush of hair here and there is unfamiliar, so like his own, and the feel of it under his fingers is alien, though he adjusts fast. Mostly because he starts touching without meaning to, rubbing thumbs in circles on the arms that hold him up, the nape of the neck as he's held under the water until his hair is plastered to his head. There's nothing he wants more than to shift forward an inch or so, to angle his wet lips onto the angel's, to show what he can't tell because it feels like it's going to burst out of him if he just keeps letting it go. But he holds himself back, the mantra of _no bad wrong_ ringing in his ears like it always does. Deprivation is a good friend, one that has invited itself in over the years. He's unsure of how to let it go, never minded it before, but now claws at it, desperate to push it aside and _live_ , to give in.

He moans at the struggle, an ugly whining sound that surrounds him, enhanced by the bathroom's acoustics. He's still clutching at the angel, weaving fingers through mostly-dry hair when he's brought back to standing and opens his eyes, finding himself nose-to-nose with Cas. He knows how he must look, too depleted to even stand, body shaking with fatigue. It's humiliating, especially in the face of such power and control. But when he hides behind eyelashes that drip tap-water tears, the pads of fingers come to rest on his jaw and he slides his gaze back up. A moment later the tiny hairs are touching skin again, but not his. They rest in a butterfly kiss on Cas' cheek while his mouth receives the real deal, a heated affair of wet lips that nip lightly before parting, crossing boundaries, taking steps that can't be undone. When the angel slicks his tongue over Dean's with no real technique, but enough passion to more than make up for it, he forgets that he's naked and kissing a celestial being. His mind shorts out, knows only now, this moment, this second, the hand that touches his hip, trailing up, up, until it crosses over onto the scar that's still shiny, still looks new. The brush of digits over it almost sends Dean to his knees, but Cas holds him like he's the most important thing in the world, grip strong, sure.

The angel's exploration continues, mouth tracing Dean's forehead, cheeks, down his chin, then neck, finding sweet spot along the way, the one that makes Dean tremble and emit some nonsense sound that only makes Cas taste harder, adding teeth to the mix. With hands that act of their own accord, Dean reaches between them, slicks deft fingers through wetted-down hair and then over secret skin, an organ he's pretty sure the angel's never used before. He curls around it, mimics its shape and strokes in ways he knows feels good and the fact that this is so new and odd is forgotten when Cas' head lolls back, mouth opening in a call not to god but to _Dean_. He doesn't expect the angel to last long and so isn't surprised when, after a few minutes of strokes that turn the angel into putty in his hands, that make him gasp into their connected mouths, he brings Cas to completion. What gets him is that he's dragged over the edge with the angel, the pleasure he'd invoked rebounding at him, filling him with a screaming awe, a level of bliss that travels up and down his body, lapping at his entire nerve like the tide of the ocean at his feet.

Somehow, when it ends and they're breathing heavy together, they're both still standing. The water gets shut off and Dean is dried, dressed, and put to bed. Though he feels like an infant, he's too comfortable to complain.

“Cas?” He sounds far away, even to himself. _Tired._

“Yes?”

Dean doesn't know how to ask this, doesn't want to offend after he's been given such a gift, but it's on his mind and he doesn't hold things like _this_ in, not when it's a question of other people getting hurt.

“Jimmy,” he starts, the name concrete on his tongue. “Is he—did he— _feel_ that?”

“James is gone,” Cas says, carding fingers through Dean's hair, displacing droplets of water that glisten in the low light.

“Where?”

“I let him go to heaven.”

“Why?” What about after the apocalypse, when Cas would go away? What about his vessel's body?

“He was in pain. He didn't want this anymore, just wanted it to end. So I let him go. I had selfish reasons, too.”

“Selfish?”

“If I fall, Dean,” the angel says, calmly, talking of being stripped of his grace like he would the nightly news, “I want to be around. I want to stay. And I need a body to do that.”

“Why haven't you fallen yet, Cas?”

“I still have faith, Dean.”

“In the apocalypse? In What your brothers want?” He jerks, tries to pry himself away, but he's held fast, still, and given an explanation.

“I believe my Father wants you to stop the apocalypse, wherever he may be. I know you will. But I think heaven got it wrong, that there are other ways.”

“Are you joining team free will, Cas?” If he squints, Dean thinks, maybe, that the angel might be almost-smiling.

“I'm on whatever team you are, Dean.”

“Oh.” Nothing else comes, so he falls asleep, warm all over, with the gaze of his angel (he's sure about that now) on him. Only him.

 

***

Sam comes back. Dean keeps from shouting, from hating the part of himself that was convinced his brother would never return, would abandon him for good. They're shaky at first, tentative in a way that's wrong and uncomfortable, but backs have been stabbed, bridges burnt and now they're just trying to hold onto one another before the world falls apart.

Dean tells Sam about Cas. In simple words and phrases, he tells his brother of how he was brought back from the edge by the person who'd saved him once before, who was the reason he'd kept going in Sam's absence. His brother doesn't say anything, doesn't voice his judgment, if he has any. But what, really, could he say? He's in no position to criticize Dean and he knows it. So while his eyes, green, today, like Dean's, not leaning toward their usual hazy aqua, widen when he hears of the relationship, there are no obvious signs of disgust or ill will. Dean takes it as a success.

Together, guided by Cas, who runs interference between them and the rest of his asshole brothers, they go after the horsemen, who, one-by-one, make an appearance. The day before famine shows up, he's sharing a kiss with Cas after the angel had returned with blood on his hands, the blood of brothers he felled with his own hands. Dean washes them, water going red, pink, then clear, and lays a kiss on the palm of each before making Cas lie down with him.

As it always happens with Dean Winchester, just before things fall the fuck apart, he finds hope that it might all be ok, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean shudders over the toilet gasping for air as bile forces its way out of his mouth, scalding his throat as it passes. He'd stopped vomiting solids awhile ago, and now his body just seems intent on ridding itself of all liquid. The events of the day don't help, keep washing over him in flashes that leave him gasping and more nauseous still. Sam, with blood around his mouth, painted like a clown, all animal instincts and demon anger. And Cas. Cas, on his knees, stuffing himself with raw meat, trying to fill himself up. Dean could see it in his eyes, the _in in in_ compulsion of his angel. That had scared him more than anything, the effect of Famine on Cas' vessel. Anchoring his Grace to the corporeal left him open, vulnerable in ways Dean had never thought about. And it was because of _him_.

He can still see the old man, spittle that collected in the corners of dry, cracked lips, the cold fingers as they brushed where his heart should be. _Should be,_ he thinks, choking on more acid, _but it's dead._ Even now, with Famine gone, his ring in Dean's possession, he hears the words that cut to bone, slicing deep to reveal blood and muscle and spongy tissue that works like a normal person's but isn't because it serves no higher purpose, supports a waste of life, emptiness that he'd thought was finally filling, being mended by the tentative bond with Cas that he holds so tight to, leaving half-moon indents on the angel's grace, desperate to keep from sliding away into the numbness that begs to be let in. He doesn't want to be a monster, a machine anymore. But it looks like the choice isn't his, looks like nothing, not even the love and infatuation of a creature connected to God himself can save him from what he's become. With his head resting on the cool surface of porcelain, he closes his eyes and sees the demon of his dreams, a thing with his own face.

 _This,_ it had said, _This is what you're going to become._ He wonders when his eyes, the windows to the soul, will start to black out, to be painted shut and forgotten. He wonders if he'll be able to look at Cas with those eyes. There's more pain in his stomach, scratches and twists, but nothing else is coming. There's nothing left to give. He wonders if Cas heard the speech, if he was lucid enough behind the frenzy for meat to realize the human he'd taken up with was permanently fucked. In a way, he hopes Cas didn't hear, that he won't give up on Dean because when he's around, the memories of breaking that first seal, of climbing down from the rack and curling fingers around his first blade aren't so close, are far away enough that he can function at a higher level than a vegetable.

There are footfalls behind him, then hands on his back, rubbing in circles a few times before dragging him back, up. He doesn't need to turn, doesn't need to speak to know who it is because the care in the touch, the easy way he's lifted only points to one person. As soon as he's on his feet, though, he pushes away from the support, shaking legs navigating to the sink to gargle Listerine until he can't taste his insides anymore. He looks in the mirror, ignores his own pale face, meeting the gaze of Cas' reflection. The glare he gives it would make most people back off, but the angel isn't people and just steps closer, peering through the walls Dean throws up.

“Dean,” he's looking up and down the man in question's body, concern pushing eyebrows down, making the blue stand out even more against the black. Dean knows he's being peered _into,_ examined from the soul out.

“Go away, Cas.” His throat creaks, each aching part of the muscle protesting its use. “I want to be alone.”

“No, Dean, you don't.” It's so _gentle,_ that usually stern voice. Dean wonders where he learned the nuances of inflection, the double layer of speech that has nothing to do with words. _He's learning._

“I think I know what I want, Cas.” He's angry now, mostly because the angel is right, but dammit, he wants to be able to claim his own moods, to be taken at his word and not be read like an open book.

“Like I said,” Cas lifts a hand, reaches for Dean's and though he wants to jerk back, the grip feels too good to let go. “Words don't mean anything.”

“I'm not—Cas, I don't know if you heard what that bastard said, but—”

“I did.” But the angel's expression doesn't change, doesn't transition into rejection or hate or anything else Dean expects. “But first, Dean—when do you know demons to say anything but what will help them achieve their goals?”

“But what he said, I mean, it was true. He didn't have any effect on me, didn't make me do anything.”

Cas smiles at this. “You had a lot of my protection, Dean. But you were under his influence, too. Just in a way he couldn't understand.”

“Protection?” Dean is lethargic, dehydrated, and he's had enough emotional ups and downs in the past few weeks that his fingers itch to crawl down just a little and make sure that he does, in fact, still have a penis (A slight adjustment, and...all clear). “Plain English, Cas. Use it.”

“Your vice, Dean, is _people_ , sacrificing yourself for them. It always has been. Think about it. At any point, did you question the logic of leaving Sam behind, even though he could have used his powers to help? Did you think twice about entering the building relatively weaponless against a _horseman of the apocalypse_ when I didn't come out?” Cas is in his space now, tilting his head (to the left, Dean has learned, is the angel's preferred angle) so his lips brush against Dean's, who presses into it automatically, closing his eyes to block sight out and just _feel_ the slick right slide of Cas' tongue as it trails over his bottom lip. “All the rest, the drinking, the food, the way you used to sleep around,” the words are moaned between licks and nips, layered with the taste of Dean that Cas coats his tongue in before moving back to the human's mouth. Dean finds that he tastes like a wash of lemon and the leftover stain of smoky cologne, “are props, part of an act, and you know it.”

“So,” he fumbles around the angel's mouth, “How come he got to you?”

“I let him.” Cas' weight is pressed into Dean, pinning him to the sink, forcing him to lean back a little that gives the angel better access to his neck. “He threatened your life if I didn't cooperate. I let him in.” Dean feels him smile against his skin. “It was mostly an act, though your brother beat me to vanquishing him.”

His brother. Sam.

Dean's hands stiffen on Cas' hips. They've come full circle, almost back where they started, though major things have changed. And still, he can't keep his brother from getting hurt, from the demons on the outside that exacerbate the ones within. The screams haven't started yet, and they'll probably be quieter this time because now Sam _knows,_ understands that the blood is wrong and evil and only stains the blackness in him further, like a paper towel soaking up ink. Sometimes Dean's not sure how much clean surface Sam has left in him.

Cas feels his separation, how deep he's gone into himself. His hand lines up with the mark on Dean's shoulder and even through the fabric of some old flannel it still startles him, the rush Cas brings, the way invisible tendrils of grace reach for him, coaxing light back to the surface, pushing air back into his lungs before he drowns in his worries.

“Can you help him?”

Cas moves his face better these days, can imitate and maybe even understand the expressions that match his words. So when sadness wrinkles his forehead and helplessness drifts through the hand still connected to Dean, he already has his answer.

“But you know someone that can,” he tries, unsure of whether a wild guess in the form of a bluff will fool the angel.

“We already know whose side he's on,” Cas says, startled over the request.

“Please,” Dean whispers, seeing Sam in his head, a lighter, carefree person he doesn't know anymore. “We have to try.” Cas doesn't say anything for a long moment, but he traces his thumb across Dean's lip before evaporating into nothing.

***

Dean makes Bobby let him in the panic room, though the older hunter only complies after Dean agrees to his terms, handing him thick, heavy shackles that secure Sam to the bed, even when he himself seizes and arches off of it, forming a bridge that defies gravity, muscles straining and twitching under feverish, sweating skin. When he plummets back down, body heavy and flopping, Dean's there to catch him, to hold a hand that doesn't grasp back, to look into eyes that move like REM even when open and unseeing. He wants nothing more than to not be here, to not have to see his brother broken and trembling and scared because it's a reflection of him, how he feels inside, and to face it makes it real. Every thrash through Sam's body travels through his, too. They bite their lips bloody with blunt teeth together, though Sam's tongue peeks out to gather the fluid, to bring it back to the cavern of his mouth where he groans around it, eyes rolling back. His eyes open lucidly then, latch onto Dean, who can see that they're mostly obscured by a veil of translucent black.

Sam rattles the chains, clinking them against the metal bed frame. He winks at Dean, lowering a lid over one of the horrible eyes before breaking into a wide smile.

“Chains, huh?” he asks, sliding his tongue back over his lips in mocking pin-up style. “Never knew you had it in you, Dean. Kinky.”

His jaw tightens, but he says nothing, just slips his hand out of Sam's, in case the haze of withdrawal makes his brother try to hurt him.

“Does Cas like it like this?” He squints, raises an eyebrow. “Do you use that tie of his? Tell me, does he shout to his Daddy when you make him come?” He leers at Dean, who fights the slow burn of anger that builds, gathering life. _Demon blood talking,_ he reminds himself. _Not Sammy._

“Who tops? I bet you do. Do you bend Cas over and make him—”

But he interrupts Sam, starts talking about the first thing that comes to him because it's the only thing that will keep him sane.

“Remember that time you started the car in first by accident?” He asks laughing, though his mouth pulls down a bit at the end. “I told you not to screw around with it, but you just _had_ to sit in the front seat while Dad was salting some poor bastard's bones.” He closes his eyes, lets the memory drift over him.

“God, the _shriek_ that came out of you. I mean, yeah, the car did buck a little, but come on, man. And when I jumped over you, pushed you into the passenger's seat, you looked like you were going to _piss_ yourself. You begged me not to tell Dad. And I didn't. I did take your allowance for a month, but I didn't tell.

Sam is quiet next to him.

“And I totally got you laid that first time, by the way,” Dean's eyes glint, thinking of the delicate girl with pale skin and hair and eyes like the bottom of the Mediterranean. “I heard about her in detention, some queen bee was trashing her, saying how into you she was. Why do you think I oh-so-subtly made you ask her to prom?” Ok, he'd threatened to tell the entire school that Sam kept a ruler by his bed and every morning when he woke up, he—

Dean's jolted by the twitch of Sam's lip, a gurgle-swallow. “Anyway. I knew you liked her too, man. And she was sweet.” He shifts over, moves Sam's legs so he can sit a little more on the cot, making sure to stay well out of kicking range.

“I didn't want this for you, Sammy.” He rests his head against the wall behind him, closes his eyes and takes a breath before opening, continuing. “If I'd have known that this was how we'd end up when I came and got you to find Dad, I'd have let him stay gone.” It's harder to speak now, around the sudden tightening in his throat, the thickness of his tongue. “Nothing's worth this.” He looks down and sees his brother again, the sheen of hazel under water that leaks from the corner of his eyes, trailing down his temple.

“Dean,” the word _sounds_ like it hurts, and the wince that Sam can't hide from him emphasizes it, how his brother's body is turning against itself, turning inside out with the need for blood. “Gotta kill me. No vessel.”

“You're not gonna be a vessel,” he says, each word slow, clear..

“No vessel,” Sam agrees. “Kill me. Can't say yes.” Dean shifts up, pulls what he can of his brother's torso onto his lap, holding him close. He can't make this promise, can't go against everything he's done in his life. He protects Sam, watches out for him. If he goes, Dean goes with him.

“You won't say yes,” Dean whispers into hair that's bitter with the stench of demons and sweat, abrasive and too long near his nose but he just holds Sam, unable, unwilling to let go.

“Eating at me, Dean,” Sam whispers in a child's voice, the kind that's beyond caring and image. The put-upon younger brother has disappeared, leaving the remnants of a lost man, one who ran down paths blind, choosing wrong to spite the world he'd grown up in. “Can't last.”

“No.” He pets Sam's hair, runs fingers over a forehead, looks his brother in the eye. “I won't let you, ok?” he promises, blinking hard to clear his vision. The water lands on Sam's face, staying still on his cheeks for a moment before trailing away to collect at his chin. “I'll always be here.” He hears Sam's breath catch, can feel the heaviness in his soul. “Just like when we were young. I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you.”

“Dean.” _Cas._

_Oh god, Cas. I can't—he wants me to—_

_I know._ Dean's helped up, led back a bit, realizes Cas isn't alone. Gabriel stands by his side, looking somehow more imposing than the last time Dean saw him. And though Dean doesn't like the angel, is almost sure he hates him, this isn't the time for petty grudges. He doesn't care about the wide-open desperation in his voice, bleeding like a scraped knee. The hurt pours out of him, twisting his face into ugly grimaces.

“Please,” he begs, looking into Gabriel's gold-toned eyes, “Please help us.” The angel stares at him, unreadable, but Dean knows every option is being weighed, every measure of his being, his soul, examined. There's a familiar look there, not pity, maybe not quite understanding, but a _knowing,_ a shared burden.

“Dean, Gotta do it,” Sam calls from the bed, but he's hallucinating, can't see the angels or his brother in front of him. And then he screams, loud and hard, the noise ripping at Dean, acting like hands squeezing at his throat, pressure collapsing everything in him.

“Take him outside,” Gabriel says to Castiel, before turning to Dean. “No matter what you hear, don't come in,” he warns, not threatening but warning, a measure of caring he extends to the human he'd killed countless times before. Funny how things change.


	5. Chapter 5

Every inch of Dean is screaming. Funny enough that his echo Sam's breath for breath, though Dean's don't slip past clenched vocal cords. He goes against every instinct (blood calls to blood, _run find save_ ) by standing there, away from Sam's side,  _staying_  there while the night is painted darker as agony drips heavy from his brother's body. A barred semi-circle of a window starts to flood with light that brightens, brightens until he's shielding his eyes under fingers that aren't enough. Cas mimics him a few seconds later, and then he feels vaguely flat, like a shadow, while wind whips through his ears. The light stops trying to pry its way through his eyelids, and Cas takes his hand away to reveal that Dean's been blinked outside, away from the horror of whatever Gabriel's doing to Sam.

 _What doesn't kill you,_ his mind trills _leaves you with holes and memories and makes you wish it had._ Dean looks up at the stars before taking in Cas' profile as he does the same. Can he see heaven from here? Does it make him homesick, being able to look but not touch, to see and be unable to return? He's decided that the stars are the biggest false idols of all; they're beautiful, they give hope and the idea that there's something there, waiting within reach, and then they slide just out of grasp, content to die out alone, light-years away.

“I know this is hard for you, Dean.” Cas breaks the silence, the little spell that makes it ok to pretend they're just two normal guys hanging out, looking at the sky.

“Hard, Cas?” He rubs a hand over his face, scrubbing at dry, aching eyes. They blur a little, a build up of exhaustion that has seeped under his skin, pressing in from all sides. “Imagine watching your brother torture himself until he's bleeding and spitting and shaking so hard, the house moves.” He's going to continue, going to chasten further, but a chance look at the angel's face, dark and drawn, silences him.

“I have killed my brothers, Dean. My hands have been warmed with their blood, my skin stung with the remnants of their grace.” His hands are on Dean's shoulders now and he's _reaching,_ embracing without arms and though Dean wants to turn away, the grace calls to him, settles over his skin like it belongs there. He runs his fingers through the invisible force, touching the tips to his own cheek, a fizzy trail sparking on the skin there. _It takes so much to hold me up_ , Dean thinks, as the grace pushes past, pushes further until it's inside and he feels like a Christmas tree that's just been plugged in. There's no way to be prepared for the way feels in him, the rush of buzzing serenity that fills him but doesn't clog his mind or induce false hope. No, everything is the same, but just a bit clearer, easier to look at.

 _Why do you keep doing this?_ Dean asks, and though he says it to himself, he knows Cas will hear. And then he won't have to ask, even if he craves the answer, the _why_ behind Cas' affections, why he's chosen  _wrong_ ( _he still feels like someone else_ _, all the right pieces in all the wrong places, a hell-puzzle that no one bothered to make sure was back together again after his fall_ ). 

 _I've been observing humans for awhile, now,_ Cas says, adjusting his grip on Dean so that his head is being cradled, fingers separating the hair at the back of his neck. A closed mouth presses to his and the lips are giving, soft in a way that seems strange for a man. Dean gasps through his nose as his lips turn into a network for his body, each cell triggering responses he's never connected to kissing; the quiet smell of a first snow, the easy haze of light drunkenness, the feel of fingers raking down a back. Each lights up part of his brain, sensors and input that Cas manipulates to give him something more, something beautiful. _And from what I've seen firsthand,_ he continues, opening his mouth to Dean, who pushes inside a second later to lap at a tongue that twists with his easily, tasting of fading mint, _is that humans are rather stubborn creatures._ Dean snorts at that, lips curving up into the kiss. Cas takes it, pulls Dean in further, hungrily.

_But you learn. So I'll keep lifting you up to the light until the day you decide you belong there._

_You realize,_ Dean thinks, bunching Cas' coat at his shoulder blades, holding himself upright with it, _that you've pretty much committed yourself to eternity?_ It's lighthearted, a deflection to mask the tingle of wonder he feels at the angel's words.

But Cas pulls back, far enough so that Dean can see the shine of saliva coating kiss-bruised lips, the hair that falls over cerulean eyes that, even in this light, are clear and striking. “Yes,” he says simply, their noses almost touching, the wind of the word on Dean's cheek. “I'm aware.”

“You're not supposed to want someone like me,” He says, the first true thing he can think of. It hurts, saying it, acknowledging it out loud, but it's how he feels, what he thinks every time he's intimate with Cas, every time he's not enveloped in the angel's forgiving grace.

“I was meant for you, Dean.”

He shakes his head, denial coming off him in waves, even as Cas tries harder to soothe him, to make him alright. The directness of it all, the raw devotion leaves Dean's heart in his throat, ready to streak off to a new place where faces have changed but bodies are the same and they all respond the same way, anyway. “There's no such thing as destiny, Cas. There are decisions and sacrifices and free will. And that's all.”

“We were given free will,” Cas lifts his chin, looks into those stars again. “So I was given the choice to want you after I saved you. He let me choose.”

 _It's incredibly frustrating,_ Dean thinks, _to verbally spar with someone who has an answer for everything._

Cas' lip twitches.

“Stay out of my thoughts,” Dean grumbles, with all the wrath of a kitten.

_Do you really want me to?_

“No.” He clears his throat, shifts his weight from leg to leg. “We've got to just get a beer or something sometime, Cas. The amount of feeling-sharing we're doing is going to kill my image.”

“Oh?” A breath of passion brushes through Cas' grace, thick and heady, burning through his bloodstream with feather touches and flushing pleasure that builds low, tenses every muscle he has.

“I'll keep that in mind,” Cas says, releasing him, calling the essence that surrounds Dean back into his own body. Dean would answer, but he's trying to remember how air works. Every time he tries to slide back into despair, to wave the white flag, Cas catches him, bolsters and supports in a way no one else, ever, has. The moments of doubt, the grief and resentment over being chosen to save the world, the temptation to just let it all fall to pieces disappears because he's reminded of why he fights, the reason to keep going. He can't let Cas down, can't let the angel's faith in him die. And he can't let the world burn, not when he knows other people are having moments like this all (though probably toned-down human versions) over, are letting their masks slip in the face of love's clarity.

But what makes _this_ moment, this understanding perfect is that Dean doesn't have to say anything. He can scoff and change the subject and posture on the outside, but the angel will always know the truth. His reverie is broken when Cas steps out of his personal space, motioning for Dean to follow.

“Come on.” There's no trace of amusement in him anymore. “Gabriel's calling us." 

***

Sam isn't in the panic room. His been laid out on a bed upstairs in Bobby's house, body curled in on itself. His fetal position hearkens back to innocence, to youth before all this when they weren't vessels or hunters but children, safe in a world where nothing that went bump in the night was any of their business. At first because he is so still, Dean thinks Sam is dead, that the expressionless ease on his face has been placed there by a reaper's cool hand. A frantic second later there's a strong thrum of the carotid artery under his fingers, steady and even. The relief makes his shoulders droop and he half-falls into Sam, choking on laughter that cloaks fear.

“What did you do?” He asks, craning his neck to look back at Gabriel. Sam looks different, peaceful, something Dean hasn't witnessed his brother experience during sleep, not since Lucifer started invading his dreams, masquerading as dead lovers and friends. There's no stiffness in his brother, just liquid relaxation and calm, like the horizon just before the sun dips below its line.

“You rebuilt him,” Cas cuts Gabriel off before he can start, stares wide-eyed at his brother. Dean can't read anything negative from the words, but he's never seen Cas so surprised, so in awe of one of his own kind.

“Rebuilt him?” Dean echoes.

“You explain it, wonderboy,” Gabriel snarks, though he just looks tired and the words aren't said with enough ire to annoy Dean. “He'll probably take it easier coming from you. And I don't want to play twenty-questions right now.”

“Dean,” Cas begins as the other angel sits heavily in an overstuffed armchair in the corner next to Sam's bed (never taking his eyes off the younger hunter, Dean notes). “Gabriel has done to Sam what I did to you when I took you from hell.” He continues before he can be interrupted, before the incredulity that blooms across Dean's face can be solidified into questions and interruptions and misunderstanding.

“Gabriel separated your brother's body and soul,” Cas says the words slowly, as if he can't quite believe it, either. “He had to. The addiction was killing him.” Dean nods at that, pressing his lips together until they turn white, bloodless. He turns back to his brother, who pays no mind, doesn't stir at all when Dean leans in.

“I'm sorry, Sammy. I—this is all my fault.”

“Little egotistical, huh, Winchester?” Dean looks up to a bronze stare that could pin him to a wall. Gabriel stands, but his gaze doesn't shift, doesn't move when he approaches the bed. His vessel isn't intimidating, would strike no fear in Dean's heart if he didn't know what was burning beneath, just below the innocuous surface. He appreciates Gabriel in a new way, the intelligence it would take for an _archangel_ to realize it could hide in plain view with such a simple ruse. But now there's no question, not a hint of feeble mortal in the cat-like grace that emanates from him, even as he lowers himself to the mattress on which Sam lays.

Dean in under a spotlight, those eyes looking deep. “Sam,” he continues, finally looking away, jerking his head toward the younger Winchester's lanky body, “Did this to himself. You aren't him. You aren't responsible for him.” The lines in his forehead relax and Dean takes a breath, watches, rapt, as what seemed tensed, coiled to spring in Gabriel comes undone. “You're the big brother. You've got his back, you watch it. You buy him his first beer, make a speech at his wedding as his best man.” Gabriel is almost _soft_ now, that knowing inflected in his words, the way he gets closer so slowly Dean doesn't notice the hand coming toward him until it's grasping his shoulder, keeping him grounded, making him listen. “But the rest is _his._ His decisions, his free will. It's time to be a real person, Dean. Time to let him be one too.”

Gabriel retreats back to his chair after a few affectionate slaps to Dean's arm. Castiel takes his place. “What Gabriel did, Dean, was separate the two to cleanse them, to renew him. The body is the easier part.” His eyes move up and down Dean's body; though he's been seen in his entirety by the angel, it hits him for the first time that Cas had brought him back to life, had made his body whole again before he'd ever met him. He sees Cas remember, knows the angel is probably seeing how he looked, bloody and torn, rotted away. His throat constricts, but he wills the feeling away. He doesn't have anything left to bring up, anyway.

“Then he held Sam's soul, Dean,” Cas continues, “For as long as it took.”

“Took for what?”

“For Sam to realize that he has a life worth living. For him to find strength.” Cas says it like he's reading a grocery list, like his brother hasn't been through probably one of the most jarring experiences of his life.

“The screams?” He turns to Gabriel, jaw working a little, chewing at things that aren't there.

“He had a hell of a lot to sort through, Dean.” He shrugs, rolling a kink out of his shoulders. _Did it hurt, him helping Sam?_ He questions the angel's motives, why he would want to help them when he'd trapped them in his little tv-land hell, tried to force them to assume their inherited roles. But Gabriel just remains still, allowing Dean to work out what he'd said.

“He did what you did to me,” Dean cocks his head at Cas, squinting, adding, silently, _When you found me half-dead in that motel. When I was up against a wall with nowhere to go._

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Gabriel pipes up, a snap sounding from the corner. Dean looks back, sees the giant tub of popcorn that's appeared in the angel's lap and sighs, suffering him with only a fragment of the aggravation he used to invoke. “This is better than Days of Our Lives.” He stuffs his mouth with kernels, chewing loudly. “Don't the hot love scenes always follow the emotional ones?”

But right now, Dean has the upper hand. He's always been good with empathy, with _knowing_ how others feel, even when he didn't want to. He was a hawk, searching out tells, uncomfortable hands that betray confident voices, smiles that didn't touch eyes. And right now, he _gets_ Gabriel.

“You were guilty.” But it's more than that, runs deeper than a trivial (for the angel, at least) Groundhog Day style time loop. Something's changed, shifted in Gabriel, has made him change sides. But the angel just stands, smug smile firmly in place. He's flippant when he says he's going to find 'Wheels,' which Dean wants to dare him to call Bobby. To his face. With unguarded shins.

But he pauses, just before leaving the room. “Some things,” he doesn't turn back, doesn't look at either of them, “are worth fighting for.” And then he's gone, the door closing softly behind, and he and Cas are left alone with Sam, who remains blissfully unaware.

When Sam does wake up, Dean has sent Cas away to help Bobby with something, maybe to keep the hunter from killing a pain in the ass angel. The kid takes his time, surfacing in stages, slowly. But Dean's there, sees it all, the first twitch of movement, flutter of lashes.

“Hey,” he touches Sam's hand, lets it stay there for a second before shifting back, drawing his limbs in. “How you feeling?”

Sam opens his eyes fully, and sits up, latching onto Dean like a life raft. “I'm sorry,” he says into the fabric of Dean's shirt. He feels familiar, hugs with his entirety, the way he used to when he was young and Dean was the coolest older brother in the world.

“Nothin' to apologize for, Sammy.” He lets his hands touch on Sam's broad back before releasing his brother, who comes away quickly, wiping at his cheeks.

“I feel...” Sam's wondrous, confused. “I feel good,” he finishes.

“Angel mojo's got that effect,” Dean smiles, and something builds in his chest, a pressure that threatens to make him burst. He can't take the lightness of the moment, can't believe that somehow Sam is alright, finally alright.

“That's what Cas did?” Sam's eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “God, no wonder you two are together.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mocks. “If Gabriel asks me for permission to court you, Sammy, I'm digging out Dad's shotgun.”

They laugh together until it's the breathless, quiet kind that looks like a seizure. And though the moment is light, feels good, the mood sobers.

“It's still coming, Dean,” Sam fiddles with his hands, hides behind his bangs. “I'm still meant to be...” He doesn't finish, can't, but there's no real need.

“I know, Sammy.” He shakes his head at their future, at destiny and the plan supposedly laid out for them. “But it takes two for that game to start.” Sam's gears are turning; Dean can practically hear them, equations being worked out. So he finishes the idea, the one that's been brewing in him since he asked Cas that heated question, since he'd shared more than thoughts.

“I'm going to say yes.” He holds up a hand to stop the questions that leap to Sam's lips, the outrage and hurt and _no no no_ that flashes across his younger brother's face. “I'm going to say yes.” he says again, “Just not to Michael.” And with that, Dean Winchester promptly tells destiny to go fuck itself before slipping out of its grasp entirely.


	6. Chapter 6

“This,” Cas, in tones of gravelly vibrato, “Is by far the most reckless idea you've ever had.” Next to him, Bobby grunts his agreement, though his face is hidden by the shadow of his hat, cloaking his expression. “You don't know what you're up against, Dean.”

Dean ices over, features hardening into a mask. “I know exactly what we're up against, Cas.” He looks to his brother, who gives him a small nod of encouragement. “We can't sit around and wait for the world to end.”

“So you rush head first into a suicide mission?” The angel balls his hand, shakes his head and turns away a little, like he can't look at Dean, like he's been stabbed in the back and is just now feeling a spreading, trickling warmth start to leak out.

“We've got to stop it, Cas,” Dean spreads his hands, an appeal, a prayer. “And it's the only was to do it, to turn the tables enough so that Sam doesn't get sent to _hell._ ” He has to make Cas see, make him understand that this is the _right_ way. “You think you've seen me broken?” He doesn't want to admit to the past, to bare the flesh of his humiliation in front of Gabriel and Sam, but push is coming to shove. “If Sam gets locked away in that cage down there, I will know everything he'll go through.” He focuses on the floor, talks to it instead of the audience he's acquired.

“They'll peel his skin off him as he watches. And that's just their version of _warming up_. I'll know that they'll put him up on a funeral pyre and burn him alive, then bring him back and do it again. I'll know and feel and _remember_ everything he'll go through. And when he can't take it anymore, when he breaks, and he _will,_ because everyone does, eventually, he'll start torturing others. And then one day he'll come back as a demon, and even if we've saved the world, Cas, it will be over for me.”

“But—” Dean interrupts him, crosses the room to take Cas' hands.

“I trust you.” He tries what Cas does so easily, lets his senses fall away and just grasps at the tingle just above the angel's skin, the zing of power that's reached for him more times than he can count. His eye are open but go without seeing, focusing solely on making sure Cas knows he has no doubt, that he wants the angel to have what he refuses to give to Michael. Cas' eyes catch alight, the webs of blue and white shining unnaturally, glowing like he holds a candle within.

“So foolish, Dean,” Cas colors resignation in the weak reprimand, brings his hand up to stroke at the hair just behind Dean's ear.

“It's ok,” he whispers, focused only on his angel, on the surge of confidence, adrenaline for the rush of a coming fight. “We're gonna win.”

“You're not doing it alone,” Sam's stern voice says, coming from behind, reminding Dean of his and Gabriel's forgotten presence.

“Sammy,” he warns, turning to glare at his younger brother. “You're not going.”

But Sam's breathing rapidly, eyes alive, willful. His feet are planted, hips out, a stance that declares a challenge to Dean's words. “I started this.” He's flushed, every fiber of his being impassioned, unwilling to bend, to be denied. The fight is back in Sam, renewed, replacing the apathy, the denial he'd come to know so well. “I'm going to help finish it.”

“Fine,” Dean bites the syllable off with a click of his teeth. Saying no only means that Sam will sneak into the plans, will show up unexpectedly and break concentration, could make them misstep. If he's there, at least Dean can keep an eye on him, can make sure he's alright in the end.

“Gabriel?” Sam asks, still looking at Dean before sliding his gaze over to the angel, who stands completely still, a deer in the headlights. “If I give you permission?”

He nods once, lips twitching, throat working once before he winks lasciviously. “You want me inside you, Sam?” He receives three moans in harmony.

“Do you _have_ to say things like that?” Sam asks, face puckered like he's just bitten into a lemon.

“Would you expect anything else?” The room is heavy in its silence.

“Didn't think so.”

 

***

It's a few days later, when they've found that Lucifer is hiding in Detroit (“Must feel like home,” Gabriel had quipped), that they're ready to go, ready to dive head first into a battle that could be their last. It's late, and Dean should try to sleep but he's restless, antsy. Every position is uncomfortable, the sheets knives against skin. He itches to just get it over with—it's the wait that kills him, that makes him feel worthless.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs, quiet, his lips near the shell of Dean's ear.

“Sorry,” he replies, stilling his twitching foot.

“Can I show you something, Dean?”

“Yeah.” He thinks he'll get a kiss, a slow burn of pleasure to bring peace to his harried mind, and at first the brush of Cas' grace does just that. But they pass the point where Cas stops the flow of power. Now it pours into Dean unchecked, more and more until he's full and that obliterating awareness of everything and everyone digs at him, makes his senses too sharp, stimuli addling his already swirling mind.

_Cas what—_

“This is what it will feel like, Dean.” Cas wears him, _is_ him. His legs swing over the side of the bed, straighten, and he's walked to the bureau in the corner of the room. He's standing in front of a mirror, staring at his own reflection.

“You'll have no control, Dean,” His mouth says, frowning around the words. He looks regretful, eyebrows pulling down, guilt painted at his temples.

_Trust you, Cas._

“I might do things you don't want, Dean.” His hand comes up, fingertips running across his jaw. He doesn't feel it, can't process anything outside the grace that's pressing in from all sides, bombarding him with _Cas Cas Cas_. “I won't sacrifice your body to save Sam. I won't lose _you._ ”

 _Doesn't matter. We could all die. It might end tomorrow._ It hurts, mostly because it's true. But what's worse would be letting the world slip into the devil's grasp, allowing him to infest Sam. If his brother dies fighting, he thinks he can live with it, knowing that he went out _himself,_ not a puppet to evil incarnate.

“Yeah,” Dean's not used to seeing his own head tilt like that, angled jaw and chin cocked, thoughtful. “It might.” Like a curtain falling over a stage, Dean's sight melts away into blackness when Cas closes his eyes.

 _Cas?_ Nothing, no response, but there's a shift in him, a stretching, the sweet burn of something shaking itself out, straining every muscle before settling back in. It's not an option to be nervous because Cas is right there, in every cell and membrane, his entity laid out over Dean's. And he can feel it, the way he feels like home to Cas, though he can't believe it. How can he remind anyone of heaven, especially a being that's been there? Nevertheless, the intermingling of grace and soul calms Cas, brews peace, straining out the worry he has for Dean.

 _Can't scare me out of it,_ Dean thinks, realizing Cas is testing him, testing the bounds of his word, his trust. His vision floods back a second later, but what he sees isn't him, can't be. Not completely. If the mirror's to be trusted, it shows him but with an aura of grace, of cool light that emanates gently _from_ his skin, like the moon at night. His eyes burn neon, patterns of gold and brown and white interlacing in the iris, creating a pattern that is uniquely his. He looks powerful, beautiful in a terrifying sort of way that makes him want to look away, as much as he's a fan of his own looks. The straining contraction of muscles starts again, concentrated this time, weaving up and down his spine. He realizes what's happening a moment before it does, before bones he doesn't have extend, pushing out from skin that doesn't break or bleed. Cas allows his eyes to remain on the space just to the left and right of his back as they emerge fully, wings of silver, the color of metal in the sun.

He's not quite coherent, can't quite think in sentences. Wonder and joy and little-kid laughter flit through him and he's glad Cas can feel it, can't help but think _Oh Cas beautiful_.

The angel smiles with his mouth, makes him look young and innocent in a way he's never been able to pull off. Then he calls up a host of images, licks and touches, hands moving with lust, nips and bites, things done behind closed doors and Dean understands that this is _intimate,_ that the wings are to be seen only by the person with whom you share moments of ecstasy. They're closer, more personal even than sex. If Cas wasn't controlling his lungs, Dean would have lost his breath, like a girl in a corset in those black and white movies he used to catch Sam watching at two in the morning. The wings extend, stretching back, straight. Dean's swimming, trying to stay afloat in the sudden onslaught of energy that washes over him. It circles his heart before heading lower, and though he can't quite feel it, he's pretty sure of what's happening.

The eyes he peers through are glazed; Cas isn't blinking. He watches as the angel uses his hand, wraps it around his length. The echo of its twitch shimmers through him, amplified. He's sure the ground is shaking under him, can't comprehend anything outside the swirls of heat so intense he shivers in their wake, body, or soul, really, moving uncontrolled, sweeping over Cas' grace, begging for more contact, begging to lose his mind and forget everything for a minute or two. He doesn't notice when his body heads back to the bed, when Cas lays him down and continues to touch and stroke and tease until Dean is thoroughly lost in it all, looking down at the edge of precipice, one leap away from oblivion.

 _Cas,_ he screams, a silent cry of need for the angel, jagged and bleeding with everything he feels for the angel, the strange being that wormed his way into Dean's heart so deeply that he the idea, the very thought of separation sends his stomach to his feet.

“I love you,” he hears himself say, vocal chords manipulated, working around words he means and feels. Strange that it's coming from him, literally. But his voice doesn't sound like his own. It's raw, down to its barest form, syllables shaking with lust and uncertainty, with _fear._ He's never heard Cas afraid, not even a flicker of nervousness. But he's afraid of what he's admitting, of the consequences of his actions, his so-called slip in falling for a son of Adam.

 _You're supposed to,_ he thinks, trying to attach connotations to the words, the flash of teeth in his smirk, the laughter in amused eyes. But saying those three words, claiming the meaning behind them is terrifying in that he acknowledges all he has to lose, all that could be taken away in the next twenty-four hours. He tries to say it, to get it out but it's locked deep down, a cage without a key.

_Cas, I—_

_Shh, Dean._ Now his angel speaks on the inside, voice rolling like the ocean, the spray as it hits the surf. It's the hush of nightfall, the first drops of rain before a downpour. It's Cas' _voice,_ the one that left Dean bleeding from the ears the first time he'd used it. _It's alright. I know._ The angel's words are the steady beat of a heart, a sigh after a long day, a blanket to block out the cold.

 _Now,_ he says, shifting back to small rubs and strokes of Dean's soul, wrapping it around figurative fingers, _let me show you how angels touch._ And he does, burying Dean entirely, but not before giving him control of his voice again so he can shout the angel's name over and over again between whimpers and pleas and shouts that he doesn't hear because he's so far gone, putty in Cas' hands.

The next morning, no one looks either of them directly in the eye. Breakfast is a quiet affair, sips of coffee between the loud crunching of toast. It's mechanical and forced and nostalgic because every look exchanged, every action completed is understood to be a last. Last time seeing Bobby, eating in his kitchen, the only place ever to feel like a home, calling Sam a bitch after his brother greeted him with raised eyebrows and a breathy moan of “Oh, Cas!”

When they can't stall anymore, Dean and Sam hug Bobby and help him finish the last sweeps of protective spells and salt, then the anti-angel sigils painted on the walls. Together, Gabriel and Castiel abandon their vessels, leaving them in a stasis on an upstairs bedroom. Dean doesn't say aloud just how sharply his world tilts when the light in Cas' vessel goes out, when he falls in a heap back onto the bed. But a moment later he's curling somewhere near Dean's neck, filling the empty space he'd felt since the angel had left his body last night. Dean and Sam step outside together. Without a word, Sam pulls him into a hug, telegraphing all that he can't say through the embrace. _I love you. I'm sorry. Goodbye._ Dean just hugs back, holds his brother's gaze until it isn't his brother anymore, until what's staring out of not-Sam is pure Gabriel.

“I'll take care of him.” Sam's body does the archangel justice, fits the power that was never well represented in his vessel. Then Cas settles into him, gliding through skin and tissue and organs, assuming control. A second later, the brothers disappear, leaving no trace behind.

Lucifer, it turns out, is very polite in person. He says his pleases and thank-yous, welcoming Dean into the abandoned building he's taken over. He welcomes with rotting arms, the burning-out body of some poor bastard whose family was just collateral damage in the game between heaven and hell, who was half-insane when Lucifer's oily persuasion convinced him to give up his body. Dean's skin crawls at the sight.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” Lucifer sits casually on a fold-out chair, long legs held straight, splayed. “Gotta say, I'm surprised. I was expecting your brother. Though,” he launches himself up, circles around Dean, who shakes with fury on the inside, wanting nothing more than to hit the angel, to keep doing it until his hands are dripping red and there's nothing recognizable underneath him. But Cas holds him up, holds him still.

“You're not exactly _yourself_ right now, are you?” The smile he gives reveals chipped teeth, the black of rot working enamel down to the gums.

“Now, _Castiel,_ ” he continues, eyes tracking Dean like a cat hunting a mouse, “Be a dear and tell me where Sammy is?”

“Somewhere safe, Lucifer.”

“Aww, and Deany here sacrificed himself to save his little bro?” He puts a hand over his heart, tilts his head in mock delight. “How sweet.”

“You don't belong here,” Cas says, taking a step forward, breaking Lucifer's little circle.

“I will,” he replies, though before he can finish Dean's fist connects with his mouth. He doesn't feel the give there, but he does see a few teeth clatter to the ground, leaving drooling paths of blood down the devil's face. His response is immediate and brutal, kicks and punches that level Dean, send him into the wall at least ten feet behind. Some of the plaster comes off with him as he lands. Cas gets him up shakily, carefully, allowing weaknesses to be targeted, assessed. He's not completely straight before he's rocked back, head going through plaster this time. Dean knows he agreed to this, knows he suggested it but can't help want to free himself, shake off the shackles of Cas' control and lay waste to the devil. He doesn't know if Cas feels this, can't think straight with the anxiety and fear that build in him. He doesn't care about his own life, has forfeited it enough times already, but he can't bear to see Cas hurt. He's being blocked, denied access to the angel's emotions and grace.

The attack continues, moves forward until he's on his back, staring up at Lucifer, who gloats down at him.

“Little brother,” he chides. “You're not even an archangel and you try to come up against _me?_ ” He squats, fists the hair at the top of Dean's head, lifting it slightly before slamming it back down. “I don't know if you're brave, or just a complete moron.” He smirks. “Maybe both?”

And then their chance appears. Lucifer is distracted, thinks he's won and is playing with his captive, gloating. Cas moves quickly, grasping for the sword used to kill his brothers, the one that will send Lucifer back down. His aim is true, but at the last second Lucifer shifts and the glow becomes a glancing one, no longer on the correct path to his heart. Lucifer's shock gives way to lip-curled anger, a shockwave of power that pins Dean to the wall. Cas' fear makes itself known then, a helpless stomach-churning jolt that spins Dean into panic. Lucifer starts to chant, black-swirled Latin that charges the room with ancient magic.

The burning starts first, the cringe of veins trying to turn themselves inside out, being stripped of life and blood until his vision starts to white out. Or at least that's what Dean thinks is happening until he blinks and realizes he's just used his own body, has some autonomy in it.

_No, fuck, Cas!_

The light, he realizes, as his neck snaps up and the glow begins to intensify, is Cas. Lucifer is tearing the angel out of his body.

“No!” It's garbled and shaky, but his voice makes its way into the air. But it just builds, the pressure, the sensation of fingers reaching deep inside, clawing at everything until all he can do is scream up blood and chunks of what used to be organ systems.

And then he's alone inside, empty and desolate, a shell. There's a clatter in front of him, Lucifer, shock and horror filtering across his face as his legs give and he falls to his knees heavily. There's a sword coming through the front of his chest, then a spreading stain, the weep of blood. Sam stands behind him, both hands gripped tight on the hilt of the weapon, teeth bared as he twists it, making a sick wet squelching sound.

Dean doesn't see any more after that.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean is being moved. There is talk in his ears, sound he can't sort because the phonemes evade him, working together in patterns that just sound like music in another language, a pretty melody that does little to communicate but calms him, even when he can't find the strength to open his eyes, to clasp back at the hand that slips into his. And in truth, he doesn't want to see, doesn't want to fall back into reality. Cas isn't there.

He floats through dreams feeling heavy, sedated. The sky is a gash of purple black, inlaid with stars brighter than flood lights, beacons that look just a bit too big, a bit too close. He's in a crowd, weaving through anonymous masses. But when he looks closer at the faces obstructing his path, he realizes he knows all of them, even if the only thing they've shared is a cursory glance. He keeps moving, under their collective attention, shades of blue and green and brown and hazel eyes watching, silent as he goes. And then he finds a pair he knows so well, a brown that's warmer than he remembers.

“Dad,” he says, forgetting about the long days on the road, harsh glances and cutting tones, the _discipline_ and responsibility and constant fear. It melts as his father gathers him, ushers him closer. Dean breathes in the smell of deodorant, the kind he uses too, mixed with the pine of car freshener masking a hint of leather.

“You did good,” he says, pulling his cheek from the crook of Dean's shoulder. “I love you and your brother. Tell him I said so, alright?”

Dean wants to ask him a million questions, where he is, how he knows, if he's alright. But his father slips back into the crowd, disappearing. He keeps going, moving forward. He's greeted, kissed, hugged, stroked, congratulated. He sees Jo, who kisses him on the lips and giggles when he apologizes for her life, rolls her eyes at his sadness.

“They teach this forgiving thing here,” she shrugs, punching his arm, winking a goodbye.

Dean keeps his eyes closed when he wakes up. He's not alone in the room, can hear the in out breaths of Sam and Gabriel.

“Don't know what might still be there,” Gabriel's in the middle of a sentence, one that's laced with some nameless quality that's too serious, too upright for the angel's usual sarcastic tones.

“He's there,” Sam grunts, leaving no room for argument.

“Sam, I—” The angel's hesitant.

“It's called guilt, Gabriel.” Then, a laugh, long, hysterical. “You're feeling guilt for the one time it wasn't your fault.” His takes Dean's hand, fits it easily under his longer fingers. “It figures.” Dean thinks of trying to keep up, of paying attention, but lets himself drift instead. Cas isn't there.

When two days pass (Sam marked the time lapse in his latest out-loud panic), Dean looks at the world again. It's darker than he remembered, though it could be because of the rich cherry gloss on the wood of Bobby's house, the shades of plaid that absorb light. Sam catches him first, all but falls on top of him, words of worry and relief bubbling to the surface, pouring out because _Oh God everything's ok._ And Dean understands that it is, for Sam. Everything is good for his brother.

“'Mm tired,” he slurs into the broad shoulder his face has been pressed into. And then he's gone again.

Cas still isn't there.

He spends his days in bed, between sheets that cool dream-heated skin. He doesn't see, doesn't talk, barely moves. Anything sudden, any great wrenching and he'll fall apart, can barely hold the cracked pieces of himself together as it is. He tries to pretend he doesn't exist, that maybe if he believes it hard enough his body will give way to air, will separate, atoms flying off in all directions until there's nothing left. Sam comes in and talks, first gently, then with forced anger and provocation. They try to trick him, to make him want to care again. He allows eye contact, maintains it to be polite, but more often than not drops into sleep before they're finished speaking. There's nothing to hold onto anymore, nothing to keep him grounded.

He wakes to Sam one night. He's looking out the window, talking to fill the silence, the oxymoronic _lack_ Dean's presence conjures.

“And you did teach me how to shoulder the snap of that shotgun,” He's saying, and Dean can hear the smile in his voice. “You've saved me so many times, Dean.” The smile is fleeting, dampened as he goes on. “You've always looked over my shoulder, waiting to get whatever was trying to sneak up on me.”

The night turns the window across from Sam into a translucent mirror. Dean watches as animated expressions pull at his lips and cheeks, raise and lower his eyebrows. Sam presses teeth into his lip, briefly fights something that makes his features contract together before giving in to an unmistakable wave of sadness.

“And I just kept running away,” he laments. “Kept wishing you and Dad would just leave me alone, let me have a normal life.” He shakes his head. _Disbelief,_ Dean thinks. “I'd probably be Lucifer's bitch right now if you had. But it's not fair, what Dad asked of you. He made you trade your life for mine.  _Protect Sammy, Watch out for your brother._ It wasn't right, Dean.”

“He's—says,” Dean's throat aches, grief and lack of use gliding together so he can't tell which one's worse. “Says he's sorry.” Sam turns to him, reveals telltale shining eyes. He blinks and the water tumbles down his face, falling fast. “Loves us, Sammy.” Dean holds his hand out, a trembling limb that elicits an instant reaction, a grip so tight he winces.

“Tone it down a bit.” It's a croak, contains none of the sarcasm it should, but the effort is there. Dean can see that Sam's glad for it, sees an inkling of what used to be. He just feels exhausted, each second of trying to be the old Dean, the before Dean an effort he can barely manage. Sam just stares, concern and a stupid smile combining efforts to form such an earnest hope that he can't hold back, can't resist the truth as it bypasses his control, tearing his mask off so thoroughly he's dizzy, cant tell which way is up.

“I'm empty, Sam,” he says, voice tight, ignoring the slide and blur of tears. Sam just holds his hand and they say nothing together, allowing time to pass them by. Eventually, he clears his cheeks with his own fumbling fingers and can't help the flash of Cas' doing the same thing. But Cas isn't there.

Dean gets out of bed the next day. A shower comes first, one that lasts long enough to drain Bobby of water for the next month, but he can't get it hot enough, can't make the heat thaw the ice that's been left where his blood used to be, the cold where Cas' heat and grace once flowed. When he goes downstairs, Bobby's making coffee. The older man hears the approaching steps and turns to say something. He probably thinks Dean is Sam for a moment because as soon as he realizes who he's looking at, his expression freezes, mouth wide open though the words they'd been shaping have abandoned him.

“Hey,” Dean offers with a small smile. He knows what he looks like, saw the pale ghost of who he used to be in the bathroom mirror. He can't believe it's only been a week, thinks it must be a mistake. An eternity must have passed by since he's seen Cas. He can't have become this, a wraith, in such a short period of time. Then again, angels usually aren't ripped kicking and screaming from their vessels. The fight is probably why Dean feels like every step is made in six feet of water, why gravity seems to be picking on him so that even holding his head up is almost too much to ask. It's then that he notices a very key thing about Bobby, a fact that pinched at him as soon as he saw the man, though he couldn't figure out what it was.

Bobby is walking. It's such a natural sight that Dean wonders if his memory has been tampered with, if he imagined the metal and wheels and rage of a man contained.

“Gabriel,” the older hunter mutters, and says nothing else. Dean just nods, wonders if the angel can heal the chasm inside him, but realizes he doesn't want it magically smoothed over. He prefers the pain. At least it's real.

He sits at the kitchen table, asks for some toast. Bobby closes his mouth. Sam and Gabriel come in from outside, light clinging to their hair and bodies. They have a place in the sun, can let it play on their faces and smile indulgently. Dean just sees a harsh glare. They both stop short when they see him but recover, though not quickly enough to avoid the jerky, robotic motions their arms and legs take for a moment. They watch him but pretend not to as he sips Bobby's strong coffee, eats thick-cut toast with peanut butter smeared on it. He chews and swallows and does what's expected, raises an eyebrow and smirks, and even though it's watered down, they believe it.

Gabriel even teases him, tells him that if he wants to be sleeping beauty he's going to have to go at it awhile longer or maybe call a plastic surgeon, but Dean can tell it's done gently, a dig at something he knows isn't true. That Gabriel's treating him with kid gloves makes everything that much worse, makes him more pathetic. He just snorts and tries to unstick the peanut butter that's adhered itself to the top of his mouth like glue.

***

Dean finds him accidentally, or his body. Cas isn't there. But he looks like he is, looks like he's sleeping, resting and any moment he'll open those eyes, will sit up and smile, the rare kind that makes Dean's stomach clench. The vessel's chest rises and falls easily, steadily. His pulse is strong, skin warm. Dean's on his knees before he sees the ground coming at him, pressed into the bed next to the vessel, hands balling into fists. The door opens behind him but he's deaf to its interruption, the hands that clap down on his shoulders, the mixed voices of Sam and Gabriel telling him that he wasn't supposed to see this, shouldn't have to see it. But it doesn't gut him the way it should. This isn't Cas (isn't there), just a shell. It reminds him of himself.

He works on cars in Bobby's yard, breaking things down to put them back together better than before. He sees the symbolism of it, but can only laugh at it dryly. Time passes and he doesn't feel better or worse, just an endless cycle of the same. Gabriel sticks around, pretends he's bored of being a trickster, of teaching humans a lesson. He says they probably deserve a break right about now. He and Sam think Dean doesn't see the smolder of avoided touches when he's around, the trail of gazes as they map out the other's movements, adjusting to each other like second nature. He lets them keep their illusion, knows the rush of hidden lust. He hopes it's more than that for Sam, that there's _need_ in both of them, insistent, tangible desperation at the thought of separation ( _Cas)._

Dean sits on the bumper of some relic from the forties, grease coating his hands, soaking into the edges of his jeans. The sun starts to burn below the horizon, casting the washed-out blue of the sky gold, magnificent beams filtering through clouds. It's priceless, the sight, beautiful in a way that can't be repeated.

Dean's memory keeps Cas with him, a name on the edge of his tongue, his mind, at all times. The angel is never far from Dean's thoughts, making his absence all the more painful, a twisting rod that pokes through his stomach, corroding, a permanent wound that isn't going anywhere. _I did what had to be done,_ Dean says to himself, to whoever else can hear inside his head. _And I have to admit, I was holding out for something. I thought, maybe, everything would be alright._ He lifts his chin to that sky and sees nothing, an eternity, infinity of vacancy. The air is hot, makes sweat gleam on his skin but still he doesn't feel it, can't get around the emptiness left in him. _If you're making a point, letting me have my free will without intervention, without destiny, fine. But I want you to know I choose Cas. Every day, every time asked, I will choose Cas over control._

The sun should be drawing back, but Dean squints, blinded, as it just gets brighter, loud and insistent, stubborn against mother nature's cycle. He scrunches his eyes shut, throws his hand over them and hits the ground, covering his head. When the light starts to eat at him, nipping with hands of fire, licking across skin and fabric, he screams, lungs burning. And then it stops, disappears, allowing black to take its rightful place in the sky.

“Dean.”

_Cas._

He stands on legs that aren't exactly cooperating, trips over his own feet before he can look up, can see the man in front of him. _Cas._ He's lighter in an instant, the ache in him subsiding enough so that the constant stitch in his side dwindles, makes it easier to breathe. But anger chokes him and his first instinct is to _hurt_ , to punish for what's been done to him. He knows he can't physically hurt Cas, so he buries himself in the abandonment, the fear and sorrow and apathy that held him by the throat every second his angel was away. Cas, perfect, spotless Cas gasps, pales, sucking in air with gulps until he clutches at his ribs, looking at Dean with more pupil that iris.

“I was in hell, Dean,” he chokes out, hands fluttering at his sides, grasping the fabric of his jacket. “I was in hell.”

That's all it takes, five words repeated, for Dean to break, to eliminate the space between them, to pull Cas into an embrace so tight the edge of a knife couldn't fit between them. It's like his heart was outside of his chest, held by Cas and now, with the angel's fingers on his jaw, he can feel it seeping back in.

“Had to put Lucifer in his cage, Dean,” Cas is saying between kisses, as he trails his way up and down the angel's face, tasting everything, memorizing. Like Cas is going to disappear again.

“I was losing,” tears now, thick voice, hot salt down cheeks. Dean licks it up, tongue curling before caressing Cas', groaning at how well they fit together. “And then he was locked away and I was brought back.” Cas grips Dean's face, awe and disbelief thick, making the words almost unintelligible.

“He's _back,_ Dean.”

“Don't care,” Dean replies, insistent, eager, all mouth and hips and hands. “Let me _touch_ you, Cas.” He rakes his fingers up Cas' jacket-clad back and opens himself, wills Cas to come in, to allow their connection to take hold. The angel's grace is strong, so much more than before, twirls around Dean's soul and he knows, at that moment, _knows_ that _this_ is his hole, that Cas is his missing piece.

 _I love you, Cas,_ he says, finally. He can say it, isn't afraid of anything anymore because he knows, now, what it is to really lose, to do so without having said the only important thing, the only thing worth saying. And Cas says it back, combs through him , filling and completing, bridging gaps until they're extensions of each other and both feel its permanence. Cas is safety and assurance and a steady, blistering love. Dean is loyalty and passion and companionship. He surrounds himself in Cas, not quite sure if this is real, knows it will be the end of him if it isn't.

It isn't until much, much later after they've held each other physically and spiritually, shared ecstasy and time-stopping pleasure so intense Dean isn't sure how he's in one piece, that he groans and sits up.

“What?” Cas asks, concerned.

“Now I have a reason to be grateful to your Dad,” he says, not quite able to keep a straight face.

He gets a quiet smile, and knows everything's going to be ok. He falls asleep that night, for the first time in what seems like forever, wanting to wake up the next day. Because he knows Cas will be there to share it, to walk with him through time until he leaves his body behind. Until they can go to the angel's home. Together.


End file.
